West Bank annexation policy interlinked with US politics
ISRAEL’S DECISION over when to begin annexation of parts of the West Bank will be closely linked to domestic American politics. Under the terms of the coalition agreement signed last week, the Israeli cabinet will start discussing the matter in July. Any annexation will be based on the guidelines set out by the peace plan presented in January by the Trump administration.
According to the “deal of the century”, Israel will be allowed to annex the territory on which Jewish settlements are built, as well as the Jordan Valley and other areas which together constitute around a third of the West Bank. The rest of the area will constitute part of the future Palestinian state.
Immediately following the presentation of the Trump plan, the Netanyahu government intended to authorise in cabinet an annexation proclamation. However, the plan’s main author, Jared Kushner, President Trump’s special adviser, blocked the move. The official US reason for delaying annexation was that clear borders would have first to be demarcated by a joint US-Israeli team and that the decision should be taken by a stable Israeli government and not the interim one serving at the time. But, according to senior American diplomats, the real reason Mr
Kushner was reluctant to allow the annexation to go ahead was the reservations of Arab regimes friendly to the US, including the Saudis and Jordan.
On Sunday, in a video appearance in a special broadcast for American Evangelical supporters of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu said that “President Trump pledged to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish communities [in the West Bank]. A couple of months from now, I’m confident that pledge will be honoured.”
In the agreement signed last week by Mr Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, who is scheduled to serve as his deputy in the new government, both committed to “bringing the agreement reached with the United States regarding extending sovereignty to the cabinet for approval by the government and the Knesset.”
Mr Gantz and other members of the new government who oppose unilateral annexation can oppose the motion in cabinet. But, unlike with other issues, Mr Gantz will not hold a veto on annexation — and even if Mr Netanyahu doesn’t have the necessary majority in cabinet, it can still be brought to the Knesset as a private-member’s law. But there are some in the more right-wing sections of the coalition who are sceptical of Mr Netanyahu’s intentions and believe he is using the issue to rally his base but will not actually take the risky move of going ahead with annexation. “Netanyahu could have pushed for annexation over three years ago when Trump had just been elected,” says one minister.
On Tuesday, Tony Blinken, senior foreign policy adviser to Joe Biden, said that Mr Biden had been “on the record several times [that] unilateral steps taken by either side that make the prospect of a negotiated two-state outcome less likely is something he opposes, and that includes annexation.”
Mr Blinken said, however, that Mr Biden would not move the US Embassy back from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv if elected. While Mr Kushner counselled caution earlier this year, his father-in-law, the President, may well be urging Mr Netanyahu to go ahead and annex this summer in the hope that this will win him more votes with the Evangelicals in November.
But if the polls continue to predict a slim chance of Mr Trump’s re-election, Mr Netanyahu will have a serious dilemma whether to go along with his rightwing supporters and take advantage of the “historic window of opportunity” or wait until November 4 to find out who will be in charge in the White House.
Biden would not move embassy from Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv